Charlie Penson

[Species at Risk Act, February 26th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, we are involved in one of those debates in the House of Commons that is important to a large section of our society in Canada.

This is not a new debate. The legislation was introduced several years ago and it has kind of stumbled along under the directorship of the Liberal government. From time to time we see a few bright spots in it but then it kind of regresses again. The government has a good objective in mind, protection of endangered species, but, like so much of its legislation, its plan to get there is totally misdirected. It is no different with Bill C-5, the bill to protect endangered species.

When I spoke in the House the other day I asked who in Canada would go against that basic principle. We all want to see the endangered species protected. The only endangered species I see are those on the other side of the House, and we even have some sympathy for them.

All Canadians I know want to see endangered species protected. They do not want to see species become at risk but the method of protecting them is the matter in question.

I made the comment before about the socioeconomic impact of the legislation, meaning that it would fall to the user groups, the people who live and make their livings in rural Canada, to protect these species by themselves.

I also made the case, in terms of agriculture, which represents a large portion of the land base, that there are something like 250,000 landowners in western Canada who will be expected to bear the cost for all Canadians of protecting endangered species. I do not think that is a reasonable approach.

Some 30 million Canadians benefit from having flora and fauna, and birds and animals protected so they do not become extinct. Why should 250,000 landowners in western Canada, a few forestry companies and oil companies, have to bear the total cost of that? It does not make any sense.

Rural Canada is still an important part of the equation. Rural Canada is where these endangered species largely exist, even in their limited numbers. We do not see them in downtown Toronto. Why is that? It is pretty hard for a burrowing owl to dig a hole in the pavement on Yonge Street.

The people who live in the concrete jungles and who have these high objectives, great on them, but they have wrecked their own environment and now they want to put the burden of protecting endangered species on all people in rural Canada. It simply will not work. It will not work from a practical point of view of policing. It will not work from a practical point of co-operation.

We have seen what happened in jurisdictions in other countries. Many of us spoke about what happened in the United States when it had the silly legislation that said that it would use heavy fines and jail terms to beat up on people who do not protect endangered species.

We do know there are better solutions, even in Canada. Ducks Unlimited has had a very creative program for protecting waterfowl in the country and has been very effectual in building up the numbers of ducks and geese in Canada by asking landowners for co-operation, the very people who live their lives in tune with nature and who want to see these species protected. It is not that they do not want to protect these species. It is just that they cannot be expected to bear the full brunt of the cost. They will pay their share but they simply cannot afford to pay it all.

We saw a recent survey showing the number of landowners, in terms of western agriculture, that have disappeared in the last five years alone. It is down by about 25%. There is a huge problem in terms of people being able to make their living off the land. There is a huge social disruption just in people, let alone the number of endangered species that are talked about in terms of birds and wildlife.

I suggest that we need to look for a more creative approach. Britain has a lot of private trusts. Ducks Unlimited is one model. The model in the United States, which goes back 20 years, was the heavy-handed approach but that did not work. Why does the Liberal government not learn from examples of the past? Surely that is what this is all about. Society has a series of building blocks from which we learn and if we do not learn I think we would have to be classified as pretty stupid.

I will talk for a moment about what has worked in the past. When I was growing up in the Grande Prairie area of Alberta we were starting to lose an important species of waterfowl. The trumpeter swan was down to very low numbers. There were less than 50 in the entire world at the time.

A local conservationist named Dr. Bernard Hamm single-handedly undertook to restore the numbers. How did he do it? He did not ask the government to put in heavy handed legislation that would impose severe fines on people for restricting habitat. He went to the people involved. He went to the farmers and ranchers. He went to community groups. He spoke in the schools about the need to build up the numbers of this important species.

Those of us who have had the opportunity to watch trumpeter swans, even the few that existed at the time, know what a magnificent species they are. They fly. They teach their young to fly. They fly with an adult in front, an adult at the back and four young ones in between. They make their circuits, build up their wings and get ready for the big flight they take to Florida and south Texas. They fly 100 feet high. We can hear their trumpet. They are called trumpeter swans. It is a very true sound. All of us have benefited from Dr. Bernard Hamm's approach.

The approach the government is suggesting is much like the approach taken by the United States a few years ago. It would backfire. In the United States landowners were forced to protect habitat and endangered species with no compensation. Many of them got rid of endangered species so they would not have to deal with them or pay the fines. The government of the day was trying to protect species but its legislation had the opposite effect.

Which would be the better approach, that of Bernard Hamm or the current Liberal government? Bernard Hamm single-handedly convinced others to get involved in a co-operative approach to build up the trumpeter swan species so that today there are literally tens of thousands of them and we can all enjoy them.

The Liberal government seems intent on pushing through a heavy handed approach in the House after six years of knowing it would not work. Why does the government not listen to the people? Why does it not take a co-operative approach with landowners, farmers, ranchers, oil companies and lumber people?

The member for Sault Ste. Marie must understand this. He lives in Kenora--Rainy River or one of those ridings. Why does he not convince his counterpart he is bent on a path that would hurt endangered species instead of helping them? It does not make any sense. We need a co-operative approach.

Ducks Unlimited is a perfect model. It pays landowners to keep their fields in stubble and not put them in crop during the year. Baby ducks are hatched there. The numbers have been built up under this successful program. Surely we must learn something from the processes others have used. Otherwise what is society coming to?

I implore the Liberal government not to take the heavy-handed approach of fines and jail terms for landowners who enjoy endangered species and are intent on protecting them the best they can with their limited resources. If we asked landowners for a co-operative approach they would say yes, we would be happy to put our land into habitat to allow endangered species to grow. I have done it myself as a landowner. My family has 2,000 acres in Alberta. We have used the Ducks Unlimited approach. It has asked us to keep stubble in place and not seed certain fields. We have seen a tremendous buildup in waterfowl as a result.

Let us use that model. I implore the government not to use the heavy handed approach. It would not work. The government should learn something from what has happened in the United States. Farmers cannot afford to do it themselves. We need all Canadians to be involved. We need the government to pay compensation to help save the endangered species we all value.

[Export Development Corporation, February 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that it took a question about Bombardier to bring the Prime Minister to his feet on this issue.

What is really strange about this EDC deal is that Bombardier's portion of the contract is being manufactured by Mexican facilities. It is obvious that EDC is totally out of control. Is this the Liberal industrial policy, corporate welfare for multimillion dollar American companies supplied by Mexican labour?

[Export Development Corporation, February 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we have just learned that Export Development Corporation has lent billions of dollars of Canadian taxpayers' money at below market rates to Union Pacific Railroad of the United States. This is only the latest example of the Liberal government's corporate welfare policy to large U.S. companies. EDC subsidized Northwest Airlines' purchase of Canadian jets to the tune of billions of dollars just a year ago.

Why do taxpayers of Canada have to subsidize yet another large American company worth over $30 billion?

[Competition Act, February 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-248, an act to amend the Competition Act with respect to the efficiency defence on merger proposals.

This private member's bill seeks to clarify the Competition Tribunal's power to make or not make an order in the case of a merger when gains in efficiency are expected or when the merger would create or strengthen a dominant market position. While I appreciate the intent of the hon. member in bringing forward this bill, I have great misgivings about reactionary legislation.

As the member for Pickering--Ajax--Uxbridge has told the House, Bill C-248 was drafted in reaction to the Superior Propane case, which is the first and only time the efficiencies defence was successfully proven at the tribunal. The competition commissioner appealed to the federal court, which ordered that the tribunal hear the case again. I understand we will have a final decision from the tribunal very shortly which should clarify this situation.

However, Bill C-248 seeks to change a law before we have heard the last word or the interpretation of the federal court. I have trouble with reactionary laws or amendments tinkering with existing legislation or laws that are designed to resolve a specific situation. This is not the way to make coherent legislation that will stand the test of time. I would rather see the process at the tribunal run its course. We need to hear from the tribunal before we seek to amend. In other words, we need more case law in situations like this to understand the implications.

I want to look for a moment at the efficiencies defence as it was prescribed in the Competition Act. Section 96 specifies that a merger may be approved by the Competition Tribunal even if it substantially lessens or is likely to prevent competition within a specific market, trade or industry as long as those advocating the merger can prove that such a move would bring about or would likely bring about gains in efficiency that would be greater than those offset by the effects of any prevention or lessening of competition.

In other words, if two companies were set to merge and the efficiencies were such where both could survive or both could fail if there were no chance to merge, what would be the ultimate outcome of the merger? It seems to me that at least there would be one merged company providing a service that maybe no other company could offer if the merger were not allowed.

Section 96 further instructs the tribunal to consider whether gains in efficiencies will result in a significant increase in the real value of exports or a significant substitution of domestic products for imported products. The Competition Act is clear that a redistribution of income between two or more persons or groups cannot be considered an efficiency defence. In other words, if a proposed merger will benefit one person or group to the equal detriment of others, that cannot be considered an efficiency.

Bill C-248 would create two new subsections for section 96, subsections (4) and (5), to further instruct the tribunal on the consideration of efficiencies in a merger case. I would argue those instructions would muddy the waters and quite possibly stand merger review on its head.

Currently, when considering gains in efficiency, the tribunal does not discriminate between groups as long as one group does not benefit at the expense of another. That would be considered merely a redistribution of income.

However, proposed subsection (4) would require that the majority of benefits derived from gains in efficiency be passed on to customers and consumers. In addition to requiring the tribunal to favour consumer interest over producer interest, the amendment would also straitjacket producers into passing on the gains of a merger to customers in the form of lower prices only. Bill C-248 does not take improved services or quality into consideration. I suggest that is a narrowminded and misguided point of view.

Subsection (5) would disallow the efficiency defence entirely should the merger result in the creation or even the strengthening of a dominant market position. This would require the tribunal to discriminate against dominant players. We have a lot of industries where there are dominant players in Canada but that does not mean that there is no competition. In a country with a domestic market as small as Canada's, this may not make economic sense in a number of sectors.

What is even more worrisome is that Bill C-248 would enshrine in legislation outright discrimination against dominant players in the Competition Act. I do not believe that the dominant players in the market automatically are abusing their dominant market positions. This is presuming guilt before innocence. There is nothing inherently wrong with a dominant player in a market. However, subsection (5) could have the effect of preventing dominant players from emerging even if that is the best situation for the market.

It never ceases to amaze me how the Liberal government feels that some monopolies are in the national interest and some are not. Canadian ownership laws and other regulations specifically designed for the airline, banking, book retail industries and, I might add, the Canadian Wheat Board and many others, have prevented competition policy from dealing adequately with issues such as market power and monopoly. However I suppose it goes along with the way in which Liberals approach industrial policy: they like to pick winners and losers.

I would suggest that it is fairly easy to be a winner when the federal government is backing one's operation. We see industrial grants to certain industries favoured over others. No wonder these businesses are winning and able to compete in the world market when the Government of Canada is their banker.

Bill C-248 was designed for a specific scenario but it has a broad spectrum of implications. It implies that the purpose of the Competition Act is not to enhance real competition but regulate competition.

Canadians deserve real competition in the market not a regulated competition of a few industries under strict rules where others have no regulation at all.

I would say that we have been studying competition law for approximately two and a half years at committee. This is a very narrow group of specialists, as many people know. Most business goes on in Canada day in and day out not subject to competition law but normal business practices. I would say that this only applies to a very small sector of our economy.

Nonetheless I do think we need competition law but we cannot go along with this Liberal government's approach of thinking that it can have competition law to browbeat or beat industries over the head in the place of good policy that fosters a good economic situation in which companies can thrive and compete not only in Canada but internationally.

We need laws in place in this country, such as low taxes and lower regulation, that will allow companies to compete without tying one hand behind their backs. We need competition law that is reasonable and a government that recognizes a healthy business environment to accomplish the goal that we all want.

[Government Loans, February 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, since they will be answering it next week, perhaps they could consider the following. This is the more systemic problem.

TPC has been criticized nationally and internationally for being secretive and has promised to be more transparent. Just look at TPC for a moment. It is three years behind in its annual reports. It has never been subject to an internal audit. The required program evaluation on the first four years of operation is two years late. They had better review that while they are at it.

What kind of transparency is this? Is it the kind of transparency we have on the GST style promise that we have come to expect from the Liberal government?

[Government Loans, February 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, Technology Partnerships Canada approved an $87 million loan to Cascade Data Service on March 9, 2001. That is all the information we have on this project because TPC has yet to announce it to the Canadian public. Industry Canada's online corporation database tells us that the company was incorporated a mere three months before its TPC grant was approved.

If the minister is so proud of TPC, why is one of its largest projects shrouded in secrecy?

[Species at Risk Act, February 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak to Bill C-5. We have seen quite a few versions of this bill in the last several years. I have been in the House nine years and I am not exactly sure when the bill was introduced. It seems like a lifetime ago and it has not really gone anywhere. There is a huge debate in the country, not about whether we should have endangered species legislation or co-operation but about what is the best way to carry that out to get the result we all want.

Some people on the other side of the House seem to indicate that people in rural areas, farmers, ranchers, oil companies and forest companies, do not have any concern about endangered species or their habitat. That is a sad statement from the Liberal side of the House because it simply is not true.

My wife and I and our children have a 2,000 acre grain farm in Alberta. We enjoy the wildlife and habitat as much as anyone else but we feel it is pretty unfair that 30 million Canadians share the view that we want to be able to build up our numbers of endangered species.

I can think back to the 1950s when a fellow in the Grande Prairie area single-handedly took on the task of renewing the trumpeter swan population. The numbers were pretty low at that time. He had co-operation from landowners and he was able to bring that about. There was no heavy-handed legislation which said $250,000 for this and $500,000 for that. That is not to suggest that it cannot work but I do not think it would have worked in that case. Co-operation is a far better method.

It is a little ironic that a lot of people in cities and members who represent city ridings seem to be suggesting that we want to keep these endangered species and habitat but we want landowners to pay the full price for doing that. That is not a workable solution. It never has been and never will be. We know that in the United States it was not. If there is no co-operation from the people who are going to be directly affected in trying to maintain the habitat and species, it simply will not work.

I agree with the Liberal government that this is a laudable goal. I do not think there is a person in the House that would not agree with that. No one wants to see a species become extinct. I cannot think of one person I know who would want that to happen. But what is the best method of achieving our goal? By all means it is not a heavy-handed approach.

As I have said, we have seen the example in the United States. If landowners are not compensated, are they expected to bear the burden for 30 million Canadians? In western Canada there are about 200,000 grain farmers. Are they expected to bear the brunt of all of this? It would appear so. It is an unworkable solution.

In my riding of Peace River there are 10 million acres of agricultural land alone. That does not include the forestry and oil and gas operations which include much more land in terms of size. How can this be policed? It cannot be.

There has to be co-operation from the user groups to make it effective. It seems that common sense has flown out the window on the Liberal side by not including co-operation and compensation. It is simply not workable. We must be a little more enlightened about this. We must come to a better solution.

How many species of flora and fauna do we see in our major cities? I would suggest not many. It is hypocritical in the extreme that members representing urban ridings are trying to tell the rest of us in rural Canada, which takes up 99% of the land base, that we should do this on our own because they have wrecked theirs. There are not too many endangered species in downtown Toronto. A lot of them are gone. That is not their habitat. Their habitat is largely in rural areas.

We have a lot of moose, deer and wildlife in my rural area. People who live in the cities have to take a more enlightened approach to this. We all have the same goal in mind but they had better start paying their share of the cost.

I will use an example of what in my view is a good solution. It is a practical solution that has been used for quite a number of years. I refer to the Ducks Unlimited program. Ducks Unlimited expanded across the country. It is very successful in saving habitat for waterfowl. It started with the ducks and geese and has a pretty enlightened approach. It pays landowners to allow ducks and geese to stay in their natural state so they have an area to nest.

I was a grain farmer for 25 years and participated in the Ducks Unlimited program before coming to the House of Commons. I saw it as being beneficial and was willing to do my part, but I could not afford to do it all on my own. The Ducks Unlimited program paid us to leave our fields in ground cover so the ducks could hatch. It was successful, and its program has been expanded across the country. We now see more ducks and geese than we used to.

I am familiar with the program of the Alberta government which has feeding stations at harvest time. Grain is bought from grain farmers. It is spread out in certain areas so that ducks and geese have something to eat without raiding the crops of people and destroying their livelihoods. It is a very successful program.

Why would the government ignore a successful program like Ducks Unlimited and instead use a heavy-handed approach of legislation that has huge fines? It will not be successful. It is as simple as that.

We talk about criminal intent in Group No. 2. I suggest that if this is not a reasonable law that people feel they can comply with, there will be criminal intent. We saw it happen in the United States. Species were destroyed, which was the exact opposite of what the powers that put that policy in place expected and wanted. We have seen it happen before.

Farmers and ranchers cannot carry the burden of this for society. They are already struggling with very serious financial conditions, and we have a government that seems to be telling these people that for the good of the country they have to provide the habitat for endangered species. It will not work. It will have the opposite effect of the intent. It is criminal in the extreme to be putting forward programs like this that will actually cause, in my view, more endangered species to become fewer in number as a result of public policy.

After seven or eight years of discussing the issue, has the government not learned anything? Did it not learn anything from talking to people in the United States that had the heavy-handed approach with fines? I suspect not because it just keeps blundering on and pushing this forward.

I have outlined what I think is a workable solution. If we have the same goal in mind between rural and urban people, why not share the cost of protecting habitat for endangered species? It is a laudable goal and it is something we need to work on together.

I wonder about people in Montreal or Toronto who have residences with nice lush lawns. What if all of a sudden earthworms in their lawns became endangered species and the people were not able to fertilize their lawns, spray them with organic chemicals or others? What if they were told that their lawns had to be three feet high to protect the habitat. It simply would not work because there needs to be an incentive for people to do that.

I am calling for a better understanding by urban people as to the threat. The threat is that we will completely go down the wrong road on this in spite of examples that have taken place in other parts of the world, such as the United States. The goals will not be achieved.

After listening to debate on this for five or six years, it seems to me that any government that has not really heard this message is not listening. The government is holding hearings but it is not listening. It is not hearing what will take place and it is doomed to failure. I suggest this policy should be withdrawn and the minister should put forward a more co-operative approach that will be successful.

[Government Loans, February 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure how effective speaking to the federation would be. It had to go through the access to information channels to get what it got. It found out that at least three TPC projects worth $149 million were announced before being approved. These projects required cabinet approval.

The tactic appears to have broken treasury board guidelines and the Financial Administration Act. It sounds like another Enron insider trading deal in the making.

Could the minister tell the House if the funding had not been approved by cabinet when the projects were announced? It appears that way. Was the timing simply designed to boost shareholder prices of those companies?

[Government Loans, February 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation today issued another damning report to the government. It revealed gross mismanagement of $1.7 billion by Technology Partnerships Canada. The federation raised 17 critical questions about TPC in a letter to the industry minister.

The questions deal with suspect loan approvals, lack of accountability, March madness spending and the issue of a pathetic repayment rate.

Will the Minister of Industry assure Canadians that he will provide answers to these serious questions raised by the taxpayers association?

[Canada-U.S. Relations, February 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it has not shown up in access at our borders with the United States. Congestion was a problem even before September 11.

Just like the softwood lumber issue, the Liberal government is not delivering on its promise. There is a slowdown at the border.

We know a lot of good proposals have been put forward for streamlining the border access but the Americans will not consider them until we address their security concerns.

Months ago the industry committee recommended a high level bilateral summit on these issues. Could the Deputy Prime Minister tell us how this is advancing? It does not seem to be translating into access for our product.